Annual Report for 2010/11 and Forward Programme - Sellafield Ltd

SSEM/2011/4730 June 2011technical complications) impact on the ability of the contractor to achieve beach targetareas in any given monitoring block. This year, in response to concerns raised bylocal stakeholders about possible detrimental aspects of beach monitoring operationsduring peak tourist seasons, no monitoring is planned during the Easter (4 weeks)and Summer (6 weeks) school holidays. Where monitoring is required during thebuffer time, all efforts will be made to avoid those beaches with the highest publicoccupancy. Recognising the long summer buffer period, beaches with the highestpublic occupancy rates (St Bees and Seascale) are scheduled to be monitored asclose as possible to the start and finish of this break. This should mean thatmonitoring takes place at times that are most representative of periods when thebeaches have their highest occupancy, but without the adverse impacts of monitoringwhen large numbers of the public are present.As a result of introducing these repeat visits either side of the buffer periods and bybreaking the majority of monitoring periods down into week-long blocks at eachbeach, the number of monitoring visits to St Bees and Seascale will be increasedcompared to the 2010/11 programme.For 2011/12 we are including beach areas from last years’ investigations as namedbeach areas in the programme (Allonby, Whitehaven North and Harrington), togetherwith a non-beach specified Investigation period. The specific inclusion of Allonby,Whitehaven North and Harrington, recognises the interest in continued monitoring onbeach areas to the north of St Bees where a small number of finds have beenrecovered on some of the previous visits. A decision on how best to allocate theInvestigation period will be made closer to the time. Sellafield Ltd will consult with theEA on this allocation.To the south of Sellafield, beach monitoring has been carried out at Drigg beach eachyear, extending to Drigg Point and the Ravenglass estuary. The HPA presentation tothe multi-agency workshop in November 2010 included a recommendation for:. Consistent with this recommendation, Driggbeach will be monitored twice during 2011/12.We believe the programme is commensurate with the levels of risk as currently assessedand is capable of providing reassurance that risks remain very low. The programme fits withthe HPA’s advice for, (Cooper, 2011). As in previous years, where findings from themonitoring result in the need to review the programme, this will be done in full consultationwith the EA.Week StartingSoftrak Beach MonitoringAreaTargets (ha)4 Apr Sellafield (a) 411 Apr18 Apr25 AprBuffer Time –2 May9 May Sellafield (b) 416 May St Bees (1) 423 May Vehicle Maintenance/Strandline© Nuclear Decommissioning Authority 2011. 97